


this is me trying

by Anonymous



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Getting Together, Internal monologue/stream of consciousness, M/M, Realizing Feelings, Sakusa pov, character study maybe?, it’s my first time writing anything, mention of MSBY teammates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:53:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26297461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Sakusa grows up and tries to understand how he could be loveable and who he could love.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 88
Collections: Anonymous





	this is me trying

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time doing any kind of fic writing and it’s kind of stream of consciousness and not very edited, but I am pretty happy with it

Kiyoomi has never had to put too much effort into his relationships. He didn’t really make friends because people found him too standoffish and too particular and too difficult and too _much_ to be worth trying. His family put up with these qualities and made excuses for him to others. Having Komori with him throughout his entire time at Itachiyama made him more palatable to his teammates, and they dealt with his personality because he was a powerhouse top three hitter at a powerhouse school. Kiyoomi saw no one wanted to get close to him and decided he didn’t want to be close to them anyway. So when he meets Miya Atsumu at the under 19 national training camp and sees his brashness and his ruthless honesty, and while he doesn’t _like_ Miya, he can at least understand. He can see the way Miya behaves and recognize, ‘of course. he is too much for everyone else, too’. Kiyoomi learns later that Miya isn’t the only Miya and the only person at Inarizaki who can truly like Atsumu is his other half, Osamu. Kiyoomi tries not to feel jealous. He takes solace in Komori and practices volleyball and busies himself with his schoolwork and his family and his neuroses and he tells himself he does not wish someone would understand him. 

After high school he loses Komori. Not permanently of course, but it’s not the same. He has to learn how to soften himself for his new university team. He understands that it works best when he says less and holds his tongue. He doesn’t do very well but he makes it up to them the only way he knows how: he makes sure he is the best hitter in the country, he practices his serve receives, he practices his serves, he plays to the best of his ability every time, and he makes the effort. They don’t ask for more from him. He tells himself he doesn’t want them to. 

When Kiyoomi graduates with the honor of being the university circuit MVP and sifts through the offers from the Division 1 teams, he considers EJP Raijin, but he feels too guilty at the thought of making Komori take care of him again. Letting Komori soften his sharp edges and make room for him amongst the team. He sees the offer from MSBY and decides immediately. Maybe a team that’s used to Miya can get used to him, too. 

Kiyoomi shouldn’t be nervous on his first day with his new team. He knows what he brings to the table and what he doesn’t. He knows how to soften his edges with silence and omissions and how to stay sharp when it matters. But he can’t help being anxious during the introductions and trying to find the way he’ll fit in. He notices himself watching Miya and how he interacts with the team. How do they respond to Miya? Is that how they’ll respond to Kiyoomi? Kiyoomi listens to Miya and notices he’s different. Kiyoomi knows Osamu hasn’t played since high school and maybe that’s why Atsumu isn’t as brash, isn’t as ruthless with his words, isn’t as much as he used to be. Kiyoomi wonders if maybe that’s what his old teammates from Itachiyama would think about seeing him now, without Komori. When he and Miya get put together to practice and learn each other’s skill and style, Miya gives him a careless grin and a hideous nickname and Kiyoomi takes it with a scowl and pretends he hates it just because he knows that’s what Miya expects him to feel. But the truth is that no one has ever given him one before, and even though it’s awful, it almost feels nice. He remembers the feeling of recognition he felt all those years ago when he watched Miya at the camps, and he wonders if Miya feels it when he looks at Kiyoomi. They’re both singleminded and demanding of themselves and each other. They sync up perfectly for play after play. Kiyoomi stays late when Miya calls ‘Omi-Omi-Kun! Practice serves with me’. It’s not a request, but Kiyoomi would have said yes no matter how it was asked. It takes less than a week for Kiyoomi to completely fall for Miya. 

Kiyoomi has always had a heart that acted on instinct and overwhelmed him. Has always existed in the present moment only, unconcerned with consequences, each new want becoming an immediate and all-consuming need. He has felt many such flares for boys he knew in his past, sparks that become forest fires that burn him out from the inside, until his more anxious and reserved thoughts can tamp them down to ashes. Kiyoomi waits to be consumed and reborn like he always has been. He waits, impatiently, for the sensations to lessen so he can move on. And while he waits, he collects little pieces of Miya. 

Miya licks his lips as a nervous tick. Miya spends at least nine, but no more than fourteen, minutes styling his hair in the locker room after practice. Miya alternates between two different flavor workout recovery drinks: passionfruit and some hideously toxic-looking blue raspberry. Miya gets a repentant flash of regret in his eyes when he thinks he might have said something too harsh, and when the team laughs or snaps back or shrugs it off, Miya’s shoulders release the tiniest bit of tension. Miya has an unrivaled tenacity for challenges. Miya seems like the kind of person who doesn’t care what you think of him, but Kiyoomi has seen him wilt for just a flash when Bokuto or Inunaki joke about how unlikeable he is. Kiyoomi feels his face flush with anger when he sees Miya laugh it off, resigned, and he turns away so Miya won’t see it. 

Kiyoomi waits and waits for the chaos of his heart to fade into nothing. He waits for whatever act or word or sight is going to snap the delicate strings of his affection, the way every infatuation has ended before. It never comes. 

Kiyoomi has always said he’d never been in love, not really, when Komori would ask him. ‘How can it really be love?’ he thinks, when after a couple days or months, the initial sparks fade and all that’s left is Kiyoomi, honest and bare, rough and sharp and mean, and the boys he wanted avert their eyes, because Kiyoomi is too much to look at when he isn’t behind his skill on the court or his silence, and his mouth isn’t covered by his mask and every curve of his mouth gives him away as too too much? 

Kiyoomi calls his cousin after two months of extra practices with just him and Miya trading serves and barbs in equal measure. He tells Komori that every infuriating thing Miya does and says kindles something in his heart. Komori laughs and tells him one of Inarizaki’s old middle blockers on EJP said Miya deserved to be on a team with Kiyoomi the “too blunt jerk”, but the way Komori’s voice softens, he thinks maybe it wasn’t meant to be a curse. 

Kiyoomi thinks about the duo of Miya and Miya at seventeen, taking on the world. He thinks about _his_ Miya, pushing and pushing and pushing on everything and everyone until it bent or broke or left. Kiyoomi thinks about his own loneliness on his first day of university, without the security of Komori’s unconditional familial acceptance, and tries to imagine Miya without Osamu at his side for the first time. A Miya who doesn’t know how to do anything but push, and for the first time, someone who will stand up to the pressure or push back isn’t there. He thinks of the way he can tell when Miya is holding his tongue, the worry in his eyes and mouth when he fails to do so. He thinks of his own relief when he can snap and sneer at Miya when he is frustrated and the way Miya takes it in like it’s air. He remembers the first time Miya lost his temper with him on the court, the nasty way he snarled at Kiyoomi, and the relief in his face when Kiyoomi answered with his own growled acknowledgement; an immediate understanding. He thinks of every moment he gets with Miya where he can stop pretending to be less and he wonders if Miya feels it too. 

Kiyoomi stops waiting for the fire in his heart to burn out. 

Kiyoomi keeps watching Miya, addicted to the curve of his jaw and the snark in his voice. He watches the way Miya will literally bend and shape himself to get the best results from each play and wonders if he ever gets tired of his off-court contortions too. He wants to untangle Miya, lay him out on the table and dissect him. He wants to tell him he doesn’t need to keep twisting and hedging and pretending to be more palatable; not for Kiyoomi. He has always loved what people would say are acquired tastes, relishing the bitterness of dark chocolates, the mouth-drying tannins of red wine, the overwhelming herbaceous salt of German black licorice wheels. Each sensation is special. Each taste is an experience. 

Kiyoomi watches as Miya makes room for him. On the team, in conversations, including him in inside jokes and team outings. He watches Miya contort himself around everyone else and wonders if maybe that’s how he’s coped with the lack of his twin. Kiyoomi asks him to stay for extra practices and cool-down stretches. Miya obnoxiously asks him every time ‘why? ya want me around that bad, Omi-kun?’ But it doesn’t have any bite, and he stays. Kiyoomi doesn’t know how to tell him he loves him. 

Kiyoomi hopes Miya is watching as he makes room for him in return. He brings packets of passionfruit flavored recovery drink and extra bottles of the most palatable protein supplement. He lets Miya see him smile in response to a few of the heart-fluttering calls of ‘Omi-Omi!’ He notices when Miya jams two fingers on a block and he hopes Miya doesn’t see his fingers tremble when he’s taping them. 

Miya’s face is unreadable when Kiyoomi looks up from the tape. Kiyoomi hopes his own is an open book. 

“Thanks, Omi-kun,” is barely a whisper. 

Kiyoomi lingers for the record seventeen minutes Miya spends on his hair after practice. He can hear Miya humming something tuneless and doesn’t suppress his smile. When Miya emerges, he starts a little at the sight of Kiyoomi on the bench, the faintest blush spreading across his cheeks before he can joke, “waitin’ fer me, Omi-Omi?”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says softly, and he watches Miya watch him. Kiyoomi stands and moves toward him, Miya watches. Kiyoomi moves into Miya’s space, waiting to see if Miya will move, if he will continue to bend and contort and make room. He doesn’t. 

Kiyoomi lifts his hand to the one flyaway strand of Miya’s ridiculously coiffed hair and with the most delicacy someone like Kiyoomi (who burns with a forest fire in his heart, too blunt, too strong, too much, to sharp to look at) can manage, he tucks it back down. 

“Yeah, I’ve been waiting a long time for you, Atsumu.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am a firm believer in the Sakusa falls first agenda. Thank you for reading!


End file.
